‘Faaacking ‘ell,’ a voice garbled into the side my face, coating my cheek with flecks of thick white spittle. I pivoted quickly to see a small haggard man leering with a sloppy grin, his watery eyes focused on the area between my neck and my midriff. I couldn’t decide whether to administer him directly with a look of disgust, or turn haughtily with my nose wrinkled in repulsion. I chose the latter, rotating myself away from him with my head held almost comically high. The heat was stifling as we all stood waiting for the bus. A middle aged, overweight black woman with poorly stitched on blonde hair fanned herself languorously with all the vigour of a camel. Two elderly Asian shopkeepers marched over from where they had closed the shutters and stood close, chattering in hushed ambiguous tones. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the man shifting from foot to foot, sluggishly nodding at me with his tongue sliding onto his lower lip. I stayed in the same position of fake nonchalance, internally shuddering. Not more than 30 seconds passed before I felt a clammy hand on my elbow. ‘Oi love,’ He was almost pressed against my side, with his face nuzzling into my hair. ‘Urgh fuck off,’ I involuntarily yelled as I yanked my arm away from him and stepped backwards. He smelled like acerbic body odour and piss.
I had come to the bus stop at the transitional point in time where late evening transcends into night and the sky blue is replaced by a deeper purple peppered with unnatural pink. We were now coated in this twilight, broken by triangular slivers of orange light, where the streetlights managed to get past the high angular fixtures. The bus still wasn’t here. At the sound of my shriek, the woman with the terrible hair paused her fanning for a moment and turned slowly towards me, before blinking and turning back whilst blowing a lacklustre bubble of greyish gum. ‘Don’ be like that babe,’ he approached me once more and I saw the cavernous gaps where his teeth had once been. ‘Ah jus’ wanna talk t’ya,’ he offered with a slur. He sniffed and drew up enough mucus to quickly spit on the floor, then waveringly advanced towards me still smiling with a slight underbite. I looked around me once more at our oblivious audience, all doing a stellar job of ignoring us both. I thought realistically. I had no clue where I was. I smelled like sweat and someone unfamiliar, and I had my clothes from the night before on with the welcome addition of a loose jumper that wasn’t mine. As I’d clambered out of the bed I didn’t know, I’d been directed to get the 162 from bus stop J on the high street; ‘Just by McDonalds, can’t miss it’. I couldn’t miss it. But my bus hadn’t appeared for long enough to prompt doubt about if it would ever come. Even if I knew where I was, if I started walking, the bus – my bus - would drive past me within my first few steps. Nevertheless a worse fate of the ever charming spittle Casanova would await me if I stayed.
I rapidly considered which would be the best of two terrible situations as he staggered, holding onto the information pole that graced the bus stop. He was having troubles on his route. ‘Y-‘ he began, lifting his arm towards me, before what I conjectured was a wave of alcohol hit him. He retracted his arm and retreated back to the safe place of the pole before swaying with his head hanging forward, eyes closed in a search for clarity. I sighed a sigh of safety and repulsion as a thin trail of dribble leaked from his sagging mouth and he stood on slightly bent knees with both hands now clutching the pole. His eyes flickered as they stayed closed and I waited a minute before accepting the shelter of the bus stop bench. A few more forsaken looking people had joined us and we all lingered in British silence as the man wafted backwards and forwards, clinging to the pole like a nervous stripper. From my seat I sought the eyes of the woman with the wide arse and grey gum, so I could give her a ‘thanks for nothing’ look, but as she peered back at me, she countered my glower with a ‘you’re a slut’ scowl. Great.
Just as I began to hope that the drunken dribbler had given up on me, he opened his bleary eyes and decisively wiped his mouth with the grey sleeve of his hoodie. His hands released the pole and I turned to develop extreme interest in bus route 68. I heard his heavy uncertain steps lumbering over until the weight of the bench increased, and I sank as I inhaled his pungent fragrance. ‘Llllissten..’ He elongated the ‘L’ and ‘S’ long enough to deposit a spatter of spittle on my nose once more. I was incensed. I was tired, I felt dirty, and my eyelashes were encrusted with brittle mascara remnants. My hair was matted and sticky, my nose was shiny and my fingertips were grubby. My thighs were sore, my feet ached and my heels were tattered, breaking off at the sides and leaving a trail of cheap rubbery fibre wherever I walked. My bed was so far away and I- ‘Wa’s yer name thhhen?’ No. He had interrupted my livid thoughts of self-pity and I’d fucking had enough.
As I slowly turned towards him with my shoulders hunched high in irritation, I contemplated everything I could possibly do in a roulette of outrageous ideas. I considered screaming in gibberish resembling tongues. I thought about punching him in the face. I deliberated just pushing him off the bench like a child. Then I thought about the unthinkable. Possessed, I grabbed his wretched face with might and I held it for a millisecond, before drawing in his stinking toothless mouth and pressing my mouth onto it. I tasted the white ace and faint vomit residue coating his lips. I released him with force and as I softly gagged once I stared defiantly into his groggy eyes. His head lulled back in potent confusion and with a parting ‘fucking ‘ell’ he leant back against the bus shelter wall, his eyes squinting lazily at me, and then the floor. He opened his mouth to say something else but stopped, still unsure about what had happened. I quickly spat on the floor next to me, before heaving and finally puking, an amalgamation of repugnance laced with the brandy from last night. I cared for the opinions of the other people waiting at the bus stop just as much as they cared for what happened to me, neither party could give a fuck. We’d all been waiting together for 14 minutes, and we were no more united than we were before. I pulled out some tattered tissue from my bag and mopped the corner of my mouth, cradling my face with my other hand. I heard a bus leaving a stop up the road, and as it sped past I caught a glimpse of the numbers etched onto the back. 162. I reared my head and looked up high, towards the top of the information pole of my bus stop, where I beheld a modest sign that merely read ‘Bus Stop K’.
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